Author Description

This book traces the history of the famous portrait of the Turkish Sultan Mehmed II by Gentile Bellini, which has appeared, Zelig-like, at critical historical moments from its production in Istanbul to its current home in the National Gallery in London and the modern Turkish imagination. 0Structured as the biography of an object, Elizabeth Rodini explores key moments in the picture's history, such as when the famed Orientalist and excavator of ancient Nineveh, Austen Henry Layard, recovered the picture and gave it pride of place in his Venetian palace, and how in 1999, the picture returned to Istanbul, in a solo show that opened just days before Turkey made its first petition to join the European Union. In so doing she explores the meanings that were imposed on it in different times and places.0The book's methodological questions range broadly, from the nature of historical evidence and interpretations of portraiture, to the shifting status of authenticity and verisimilitude in different cultural contexts.0It is at once the history of a picture's place in evolving dialogues between East and West, an investigation-through-practice of historical and art historical methodologies, and a meditation on the many and varied ways that objects construct meanings. In 1479, the Venetian painter Gentile Bellini arrived at the Ottoman court in Istanbul, where he produced his celebrated portrait of Sultan Mehmed II. An important moment of cultural diplomacy, this was the first of many intriguing episodes in the picture's history. Elizabeth Rodini traces Gentile's portrait from Mehmed's court to the Venetian lagoon, from the railway stations of war-torn Europe to the walls of London's National Gallery, exploring its life as a painting and its afterlife as a famous, often puzzling image. Rediscovered by the archaeologist Austen Henry Layard at the height of Orientalist outlooks in Britain, the picture was also the subject of a lawsuit over what defines a “portrait”; it was claimed by Italians seeking to hold onto national patrimony around 1900; and it starred in a solo exhibition in Istanbul in 1999. Rodini's focused inquiry also ranges broadly, considering the nature of historical evidence, the shifting status of authenticity and verisimilitude, and the contemporary political resonance of Old Master paintings. Told as an object biography and imagined as an exploration of art historical methodologies, this book situates Gentile's portrait in evolving dialogues between East and West, uncovering the many and varied ways that objects construct meaning. -- Back cover